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Brian Lock was a freshman when the first brew pub opened in Portland, Ore., close to his home, and he quickly made a discovery.

"That was my calling," he says.

He followed that love of fine beer through several Oregon microbreweries after college, then came to New Mexico -- which had not yet become saturated with craft breweries -- at the urging of a friend and, with three partners, acquired Santa Fe Brewing Co. in 1996.

He has since bought out his partners and just moved to an expanded facility with big plans for growth, including distribution into other states, while more than doubling output and revenues.

When Lock and his former partners purchased the brewery, it was located in Galisteo and owned by Mike Levis, father of Ty, one of Lock's partners. Levis was using equipment that had been custom-made for the Boulder Brewing Co.. After buying the business, the partners moved to rental space just off the Turquoise Trail in 1997. Eventually, however, they reached the limits of their capacity at that facility, brewing 2,000 barrels. Lock was itching to take the business to the next level. He bought out his partners in 2003 to pursue those plans.

Ty Levis still works as a brewer at the business, although he is no longer a partner. He says Lock made the right decision.

"Brian will have total control, which is good," Levis says. "When you have four guys battling with their personal visions -- I felt we were spinning our wheels. It made sense to have one owner, one decision-maker. He's got a great vision."

Last year, Lock bought the former Wolf Canyon Brewery, located off Interstate 25 and Highway 14, with a Small Business Administration loan, and built a new 11,800-square-foot building, put in new brewery equipment and a new bottling line (with the help of a flamboyant Hungarian inventor, Alfonz Vizolay), at a cost of about $1 million. He set up the new location in Santa Fe County with plans to do 40,000 barrels a year (1.2 million gallons). This year's goal is 7,000 barrels.

Lock says 2005 revenues were close to $500,000 and he anticipates they will be closer to $1.5 million this year.

Santa Fe Brewing has steadily built a loyal following in Santa Fe, a town that loves to support home-grown businesses. It has saturated the market through self-distribution. In 2004, the company signed a distribution agreement with Southern Wine and Spirits, expanding its reach around the state and just a bit into Colorado. However, demand started outstripping its brewing capacity, growing by 30 percent.

The company is riding a wave of growing demand for craft-brewed beers that rose meteorically in the 1990s, then slacked off, says Charlie Papazain, president of the Brewers Association, a trade group in Colorado. The market saw 30 percent growth every year during the 90s, which eventually had to slow down as markets became saturated, he says. The rate is now about 9 percent a year.

"Since then, craft brewers have done a great job sustaining their business, despite relatively slow growth and building a foundation of respecting and appreciating their customers," he says.

They do this by providing more interesting flavors and more diversity in beer, tapping into the apparently boundless consumer appetite for options.

"(Consumers) want choice and they want to feel like individuals making their own choices and crafting their own little world of things they choose to participate in and identify with," Papazain adds.

Unlike the image projected by large breweries in their massive media campaigns, craft brewers don't talk down to their customers, he says. They do things like offer seasonal brews. Brew pubs, in particular, can introduce customers to new tastes.

Lock was initially uninterested in the brew pub on the property. But his contractor, Justin Young, did, and has turned it into a thriving operation. Lock is beginning to see the advantages of the kind of synergy a retail operation offers to the brewery. Santa Fe has three main beers as its staples -- pale ale, nut brown and wheat -- but offers 10 different beers overall. Many of these are only available at the brewpub.

Young is making the pub a destination location with live music, including an appearance by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins on March 21. The small outdoor theater on the property can hold 800 to 1,000 people, and Lock says a reggae festival is possible. He will begin tours of the brewery on Saturdays starting in April.

Now that Santa Fe Brewery has expanded its brewing capacity exponentially, Lock is once again focusing on marketing and advertising to build more demand for the beer. He credits the quality of the product with helping the company grow.

"But the majority is marketing," he adds.The name itself -- Sante Fe -- is a powerful brand that really helps, he adds.

The bottle designs include caps with their signature bright yellow Zuñi sun symbol (also on the New Mexico flag). The company sells those as magnets, t-shirts, hats and pint glasses and for future beer drinkers, half-pint onesies.

Lock is trying to get into more festivals, either as a vendor or an official sponsor. The company's distribution now is about 60 percent bottles, 40 percent kegs. Within the month, it will roll out to bars in Albuquerque with kegs, and Lock plans to expand distribution to Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. The brand has made inroads with Texans because of the numbers who visit Santa Fe or have second homes there.

And, of course, he is continually rolling out new products, such as a Pilsner and the Chicken Killer Barley Wine, which just went into statewide distribution, a strong beer with 10 percent alcohol in honor of Charlie, a dachsund from the brewery's old days who mauled 27 chickens one afternoon. The dog is now memorialized not only by the beer but also on a t-shirt -- where he sports sombrero and bandeliers.

Even the company's Web site is designed with fun in mind. It gives a satirical history of the beverage, distilling the rise and clashes of civilizations into a simple battle over the best geographic locations to brew beer.

Lock's new location has ample room for additional space, but for the moment, he's content to continue working towards 40,000 barrels a year.

"I'd be relucant to grow bigger than this," he says "because that's a lot of headaches."

mkamerick@bizjournals.com | 348-8323

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